1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a machine for diagnostic and/or therapeutic treatment, particularly a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine, comprising, in combination therewith, a table for supporting the patient which table is engageable and disengageable from part of the structure of the machine.
2. Descriptions of Related Art
At present, patient tables, especially those for bearing the patient during diagnostic and therapeutic treatment, by using machines for diagnosis and therapy, are deemed to be separate from the structure of these machines. In order to allow limbs or anatomical regions of the patient""s body to be inserted into the operating area of the machine, such as an operating surface, a chamber or a cavity two solutions are essentially applied.
In the first solution, where the structure of the machine permits, the table, having a substantially conventional shape is fully or partially inserted into the structure thereof. This solution involves a huge size of machine, which has a very high purchase and installation cost. Large machines are generally cumbersome and heavy and cannot be placed in premises having a normal construction as regards volume and resistance of floors. This involves cost increases, which are added to the higher cost of the machine.
In Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging machines, the weight problem is important, and the dimensional problem also affects installation costs when, for instance, machines must be enclosed by shielding cages which, by their huge volume, usually have no light construction.
An alternative solution, generally used with low and medium size and low and medium cost machines, particularly in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, consists in simply placing tables next to the operating surfaces, chambers or cavities of machines. This can be also done by providing coupling constraints between the two structures, in order to obtain certain relative positions, although the machines and the table are always separate and distinct units, as regards both construction and structural synergy. The overall dimensions of the machine with the addition of the table increases considerably and, substantially, to an extent corresponding to the dimensions of the table. When, e.g. in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance machines, a limb or anatomical region of the patient is to be positioned inside a cavity or onto an operating surface, the patient has to be moved, or convertible arm-chairs must be provided, which have tilting parts or the like, or the dimensions of the supporting surfaces of tables have to be limited to a part of the patient body, i.e. to the part which is intended to stay outside the cavities, chambers or operating surfaces.
Anyway, the above solutions do not involve a synergic relationship between the table and the machine, or the chambers, cavities or operating or work or intervention surfaces thereof.
Further problems also arise when the patient is to be disposed in different orientations within a predetermined range. Here, conventional tables, particularly when combined with low or medium cost machines, involve a considerably larger potential overall size of the table-machine combination.
The invention has the object to provide a patient table which, by using comparatively simple and inexpensive means can be more comfortable and user-friendly, particularly with diagnosis and/or therapy machines.
The invention achieves the above purposes by providing a machine in combination with table as described above and in which the table is provided with at least one peripheral recess in its supporting surface or in a part thereof which recess is complemented by a side of the operating surface forming part of the structure of the machine, particularly of the delimitation walls of the cavity or chamber for accommodating the patient.
According to a further characteristic, each recess is associated to a removable insert for complementing the supporting surface. These parts may be coupled in different manners and by using different means.
One embodiment provides that said recesses have a much smaller size than the overall supporting surface of the table and that they form open spaces in said supporting plane, such that they can be covered by the patient body without affecting the support thereof.
In a preferred embodiment, a table has, for instance, a plurality of these recesses, which can be provided in the area of the upper limbs and shoulder, in the area of the neck and head, and in the area of the lower limbs, such as the knee, the foot or similar, i.e. in the end areas of the table.
According to the size of recesses, there may be also provided more of them, for instance in the trunk area.
The means for coupling the complementary inserts are preferably of the sliding type and are provided partly on said inserts, and partly at the delimiting edges of recesses.
Said means may be also provided on the general operating surface of a machine for diagnostic testing and for therapeutic applications.
According to a further characteristic, in order to provide adaptability to several different sizes of operating or work surfaces, inserts may be modular and modules may also have different shapes, so as to allow them to fit the different possible shapes of the operating surfaces.
A further characteristic of the invention advantageously provides a table which is transversely divided into two parts, preferably but not necessarily substantially in the median area, which parts complement each other in jointed coupling.
A preferred construction provides that a part of the table is provided, at its periphery, with a preferably circular guide, completely surrounding it, and extending from one end to the other of the end side of said part of the table, said end side being opposite to the end connected to the other part of the table.
A particularly advantageous configuration of this table provides that a part of the table has a recess whose median axis is oriented coaxially to the central longitudinal axis of the table, which recess has its open side at the end side of the part of the table wherein it is provided, which is opposite to the side connected to the other part of the table.
Here, the part of the table with the recess at its end side substantially consists of a U-shaped frame, whereas the guide for jointing it to the other part of the table is attached all around said U-shaped frame.
The U-shaped frame may also have a circular outside perimeter, coaxial to the arched jointing guide.
Particularly, in order that a certain relative orientation can be maintained between the two parts of the table, there are provided removable means for locking the two parts of the table in the different angular mutual orientation positions.
The two parts of the table may have two legs each, disposed so that the table can be self-supporting, whereas each part cannot be self-supporting in the work position, without the other.
Alternatively, each part may have such a number of legs as to enable a self-support thereof, when separated from the other part. All legs may be wheeled.
Legs may be arranged in such a manner and number that the table may be used as a conventional transport table.
Thanks to the above characteristics, the table in accordance with the invention may be integrated in or complemented by any work or operating surface or any side or wall for delimiting operating chambers or cavities of diagnosis or therapy machines.
The mutual penetration of the work or operating surface and the table allows a considerable reduction of the overall size. Modular solutions of removable complementary inserts allow a table to fit several different operating or work surfaces. The latter are not only work surfaces or operating zones of the machines, but may be also surfaces equipped for performing manual interventions. Hence, one table can fit several different operating conditions, so that the patient need not be frequently transferred for the different interventions.
The embodiment providing a table divided into two separate parts, which may be oriented in any angular position on the horizontal plane allows to simply orient the patient with respect to the operating or work surface, to the operating chamber or cavity, which complement the recess of one of the two parts of the table.
Particularly the invention relates to a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine, combined with a table. This machine has at least one surface or side which delimits a chamber or a cavity or a station, wherein at least one part of the patient body, or specific limbs or anatomic regions are to be positioned, the table being integrated in the structure of the machine so that the at least one side of the chamber or cavity for accommodating the patient or limbs or anatomic regions of his/her body is at least part of the supporting surface of the table. Thus the table is integrated in the structure of the machine in such a manner that the at least one side of the chamber or cavity for accommodating the patient or limbs or anatomic regions of his/her body complements the supporting surface of the part of the table associated thereto, in the recess area.
The recessed part of the table advantageously has sliding means for coupling to the side of the machine which is designed to complement the recess/es, for instance by means of sliding guides, preferably along a rectilinear sliding path, directed towards the open side of the recess.
Shock-absorbing or yielding end-of-stroke means are also provided.
The table advantageously consists of a part having the form of a frame whose inner edge has a U-shaped profile, opening on the end side towards the side of the machine which delimits or defines the chamber or the cavity or the surface for bearing the patient, or parts of his/her body inside the machine, whereas a second part of the table is coupled to the first part, so as to allow free orientation on the horizontal plane.
This arrangement is particularly advantageous with machines having access apertures for the patient body on at least three sides of their perimeter.
Particularly, the table provides considerable advantages, when used in combination with Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging machines. In such machines, this configuration equals that of a machine having a C-shaped magnet, i.e. whose cavity may be accessed from three sides of its perimeter. Here, the lower horizontal side of the cavity is the side or surface which is to complement the U-shaped recess of the table.
With such a construction of the magnet, the two parts of the table can have an angular range for mutual orientation of about 180xc2x0.
However, if the magnet is composed of two horizontal plates, separated by two or three columns, the angular positions for mutual orientation can extend over 360xc2x0, excepting the positions in which the outer part is in line with the columns or uprights. Advantageously, in order to allow the table to be simply coupled to the magnet, i.e. to the side which delimits the cavity, the arched guide for the second part of the table has an angular extension of less than 360xc2x0, since it is interrupted at the end aperture of the recess. The orientation angular width between the two parts of the table can be determined in this case by coupling the table on the diametrically opposite part of the magnet structure.
According to a further improvement of the invention, particularly referred to Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging machines, a receiving coil is provided in combination with the above magnet, and with the above table, which coil can be fixed in one or more predetermined positions inside the cavity of the magnet, and can be rotated about an axis parallel to the angular displacement angle covered by the outer part of the table. Thus the receiving coil may be rotated accordingly to the angular position of the table with respect to the machine and consequently to the different positions of the patient.
Here, advantages are obtained from providing removable means for locking the receiving coil in any angular position.
According to a further characteristic of the invention, the magnet of the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine has at least one or more rigid shielding members for at least partially closing at least one of the open sides, which can be moved between a position for opening and a position for at least partially closing at least one side, said member/s being made of an electrically conducting material or anyway coated with layers made of an electrically conducting material.
The shielding member is preferably hinged about an axis so as to oscillate into said two positions, there being provided, on at least one side thereof, electric contacts interacting with other electric contacts arranged on a stationary abutment on the magnet and/or on the C-shaped frame of the part of the table associated to one of the sides of the magnet cavity.
Particularly, referring to a C-shaped magnet, the shield is intended to close completely or at least partly the side which is substantially opposite to the vertical closed branch of the magnet structure, while leaving both lateral apertures of the perimeter, transverse to said closed branch of the magnet structure, at least partly open.
In a magnet configuration having two opposite poles, only connected to each other by a small extension of the perimeter or in several small areas, e.g. by means of uprights, such as columns or the like, more than one of such shielding members may be obviously provided. In this case, the shielding members may have such an extension as to complement each other in covering the whole perimeter, either contacting each other in the closing condition or not. Moreover, in the operating condition, in order to provide free passages for the part of the patient body remaining outside the imaging cavity, the individual covering members at the passage zones may be kept in the lifted position and a shielding closure may be provided by means of flexible members, such as cushions, curtains, sleeves, or else, being electrically conductive and connected both mechanically and electrically to the rigid covering members, in the closing condition, on both sides of the through part of the patient body and to the patient body and/or to the table or to electrically conducting fastening members provided on the table, as better disclosed in a recent European patent application, published by the same owner as the present one, with no. EP 0 825 450.
The above arrangements may be also applied to the embodiment providing a C-shaped magnet in which the shield leaves the two opposite open sides at least partly free.
Further, these arrangements might be used to allow the parts that the rigid shielding member leaves open to be alternately and completely closed, which might allow to provide an aperture that may be alternately closed along the extension of the shielding member, and that is meant to close the open side of the cavity, opposite to the transverse side for connecting the two poles.
Here, when an integration to the extension is required to close the cavity completely, in addition to flexible or anyway deformable closing members, parts of a rigid wall, possibly connected, both mechanically and electrically, to the remaining extension part of the shielding member, may be provided.
According to a further embodiment of the invention, the C-shaped magnet is mounted on a cart and is designed to complement a recess of a table with the lower horizontal side of the magnet cavity.
This variant is a low-cost solution for very small systems.
The invention addresses further improvements, which form the subject of the dependent claims.